Early Years

Book Trust works with early years professionals to deliver Bookstart, the national early-intervention literacy programme that offers the gift of free books and parental guidance to inspire a love of reading and give children a flying start in life.

Additional support

Book Trust works with children who need additional support offering: braille, large print and accessible books; dual language resources; targeted schools' programmes; and the Letterbox Club for children in foster families.

The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award will now be managed by the Society of Authors

About the The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award 2017

Launched in 2009 by Lord Matthew Evans, former chairman of EFG Private Bank and Cathy Galvin from The Sunday Times, The Sunday mes EFG Short Story Award is the richest prize for a single short story in the English language open to any novelist or short story writer from around the world who is published in the UK. Worth £30,000 to the winner, and £1,000 to each of the shortlisted authors, the annual award aims to promote and celebrate the excellence of the modern short story, and has attracted entries from some of the world's finest writers.

Winners of the ­international competition, which is open to stories of up to 6,000 words written in English, have come from all over the world. They include Chinese-American author Yiyun Li, Dominican-American author Junot Diaz, American authors Adam Johnson and Anthony Doerr, CK Stead from New ­Zealand and Kevin Barry from ­Ireland. Last year's recipient of the award was the award-winning author Yiyun Li for her masterful story 'A Sheltered Woman'. Three of the authors who have won the Award have also won the Pulitzer Prize.

The prize has an immensely rich heritage, with some of the finest writers from America, Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth appearing on its longlists and shortlists - among them Emma Donoghue, Adam Foulds, Mark Haddon, Sarah Hall, Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Elizabeth Strout, Graham Swift and Gerard Woodward. It also has a fine record of uncovering new talent, most recently with 27-year-old UEA graduate Anna Metcalfe making the shortlist in 2014, and Swansea Graduate Rebecca F John making the shortlist in 2015.

The anthologies of previous shortlisted stories, Six Shorts are published as ebooks and are available to download. The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award stages two reading events each year when outstanding actors read shortlisted stories hosted by Foyles in their flagship store on Charing Cross Road, London and partnered with WordTheatre, the story performance specialists. Recordings of these readings are available to download and listen from Audible.com.